Discrepancies emerge at trial

The fact that 10 years have gone by since the stabbing death of 14-year-old Christopher Mosier seemed to present problems in court Tuesday for various witnesses who tried to recall what they said to police in 1993, what they said when a man was arrested in 2002 and what they are testifying to now.

Terry Louis Johnson, 42, is on trial for first-degree felony murder in connection with the teen's death. Christopher Mosier was baby-sitting Johnson's 2-month-old son Dec. 30, 1993, the evening the teen was found in a pool of blood by his mother, Sylvia Mosier, after she got off work.

Prosecutors claim Johnson, who they contend has a long-standing drug problem, is the only person who admitted being at the scene that night while Sylvia Mosier was at work, and he was the only person who could have committed the crime in a narrow time frame between worried phone calls from Christopher's mother. They also insist that new, improved DNA testing shows Christopher's blood on a baby blanket that Johnson took from the Mosier home when he came to get the baby.

Defense attorneys contend Christopher, who was a tall, husky boy who stuck up for kids being bullied at school and who said he carried a knife himself because he was afraid of gangs, could have been killed by someone else and that there is no proof that Johnson did anything. As for the DNA testing, they claim Christopher's blood could have gotten on the infant's blanket from a cut or any small injury anytime during the previous month because the teenager helped his mother with baby-sitting.

Sylvia Mosier testified Tuesday that she called her home from a restaurant where she worked at 7:10 that night, 7:45 p.m. and 8 p.m. At 7:10, Christopher spoke to her and said everything was fine, but no one answered the later calls. Earlier, she testified at a preliminary hearing that she had called only twice, while a police report shows she told police the night of the murder she had called three times.

"I was in shock," she said Tuesday, talking about the night of the murder. "I was going in and out of consciousness, and I don't know how they got anything out of me."

Linda Johnson, Terry Johnson's ex-wife, testified that he had been verbally abusive and a few times physically violent with her, and that she made secret plans to take their son and leave the state in 1996 with the help of her former boss. She also testified she described burnt spoons and a rocklike substance she had seen to police, and they told her that her husband was freebasing cocaine.